Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
A Geek Culture Podcast - Two life-long Geeks explain, critique and poke fun at the major pillars of Geek Culture for your listening pleasure.
Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
TaleSpin Part 1
Step into the cockpit with us as we navigate the strange skies of TaleSpin, one of Disney's most fascinating animated experiments from the early 1990s. What happens when you take characters from The Jungle Book, put them in cargo planes, and set them in a 1930s-inspired world with sky pirates?
Spin it, let's begin it. Bear and grin it when you're in it. Wait, shit, that's fat. Spin it, let's begin it. Bear and grin it when you're in it. Oh nice, you can win it in a minute when you spin it. Spin it, spin it. Gentlemen, let's broaden our minds.
Speaker 2:Are they in the proper approach pattern for today? Negative, all weapons.
Speaker 1:Now Charge the lightning field. We are going to talk today about Zabalu.
Speaker 2:It's almost like he should be running from Nazis in the show. Well, I mean, he kind of is Kind of is Kind of Kind of.
Speaker 1:I mean, we can get into a little bit of that. There's one. Wow, remind me of that later. Okay, because there's actually one specific Nazi story.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was a short story in disney adventures magazine. It had a group of dogs I believe they're called the homes that were distinctly identified as german. They dressed like nazi soldiers from the houndland. Oh boy, they never reprinted that.
Speaker 2:I couldn't actually find the comic anywhere online, but I did look for it Disney's really good about well, they used to be really good about disappearing things. It was really hard to actually find Song of the South for like a really long time, right yeah. They can't really do that anymore with the internet the way it is, but still they're pretty proficient.
Speaker 1:Marvel Disney Adventures, volume two, number one, with Michael Jordan on the cover.
Speaker 2:Oh good, Then it has to be about Nazis.
Speaker 1:Tailspin the dogs of war. Oh boy, welcome back to Dispatch Ajax. This is your friendly bush pilot, jake, and co-pilot for this flight that you're on today.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm Skip. I'm the little kid Skip. Oh, it's little Skipper. I'm the kid in it, little Skipper cloud hopper, I mean close enough.
Speaker 1:I mean I didn't want it to go too on the bare nose, as it were.
Speaker 2:Just the bare necessities, nothing.
Speaker 1:I too love that porn that sounds really softcore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, but here's the thing this isn't actually technically a mainstream Dispatch Ajax episode. It is in fact Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1:Thank God you remembered because I wasn't going to do it.
Speaker 2:We're going back in time Back in time.
Speaker 1:Huey Lewis, get out of here. Hey, somebody get the broom. I locked the doors. How did he get in here? We are going back to our childhoods in the early 90s, where apparently things could just be on TV for like a year, but yet they will be seared into your brain forever. It's like they have 20 seasons. Almost every time we go back to do one of these cartoons, it was like, oh no, it had four episodes and it was like I saw that all the time. What? Yeah, I had all episodes and it's like I saw that all the time.
Speaker 2:What? Yeah, I had all the toys, but it was only on for three weeks. It's really crazy.
Speaker 1:It was just a commercial after Bob Vila's home.
Speaker 2:That's the only way I know about it. I had so much Captain Power shit. By the way, we have to do Captain Power. You remember Captain Power?
Speaker 1:I have a vague recollection of Captain Power. Perhaps it would be a learning experience for myself as well.
Speaker 2:Oh, it was a interactive TV show where if you bought the toy, it would get the ship and the pilot in it and then at a certain scene, if they would shoot, the enemies would shoot, it would pop the guy out of the ejector seat of the ship while you're watching it. Huh, no, I don't think I know about that.
Speaker 1:Well, that sounds like something we're going to have to cover that, yes. We definitely have to cover Captain Power, I mean plus, it has Sven Ole Thorsen in it, so done.
Speaker 2:The Sven Ole Thorsen.
Speaker 1:One and only.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:That was a get Played God. Yeah, it doesn't even pull up. I don't care, we'll deal with it.
Speaker 2:We'll talk about it later. We'll do it live, all right? Yeah, oh God, can we just do this live Nine hours each?
Speaker 1:episode would be. Well, we'd have to really buckle down, reign it in, yeah, yeah. But we're not going to reign today in.
Speaker 2:Today we're talking about the Disney animated adventure Tailspin. And before any of you say, wow, that seems a little mainstream for the kind of stuff you do, this is a weird one. It's been sticking in our craw for decades because of how odd it is, but not out of the ordinary.
Speaker 1:For what dc, dc, what disney was doing at the time well, yes and no, but I suppose we'll get into that as it comes up. So, obviously, tailspin T-A-L-E-S-P-I-N not a tailspin that a maneuver plane would go into crashing down.
Speaker 2:It's a reverse American tail with five yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know I put on that song the other day at work.
Speaker 2:It was a duet right. My mom used to make me try and learn it on the piano.
Speaker 1:Let's see who originally did Somewhere Out there.
Speaker 2:Well, I know, it's Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram.
Speaker 1:Oh, it was James Ingram, Okay yeah, yeah, but they also had like the little kids doing it. Oh yeah, in the actual movie. I don't think the Linda Ronstadt version happens to like the end credits or whatever, but I could be wrong about that, because I haven't seen that film in oh I don't know 30 years.
Speaker 2:Oh, at least 30 years. We're in our 40s, 35 years maybe.
Speaker 1:Well, it came out in 1986, so Okay, oh okay.
Speaker 2:So that would have been almost 40 years. 40 years, yeah, yeah, fuck, that's about right. I've never seen in the theater.
Speaker 1:So yeah, boy, but anyway, this is a weird one it's a pun on a plane maneuver, but also it's another pun about spinning tails or yarns about the adventures in this animal land, animal land over there, which always says the thing, all of these anthropomorphic animated shows. I was watching an episode. It might have been one of the ones that we're going to cover here, but they talk about the Easter bunny.
Speaker 2:They talk about other fictional, anthropomorphic One.
Speaker 1:there's always in these anthropomorphic one there's always in these anthropomorphic cartoon worlds. There are animals that walk upright and talk and have a personality and conscience, but there are also the lower animals, where it's like they'll be going through a jungle, and there are birds flying over them, you know, or hogs running wild, it's like well wait, you're a bear and you're a raccoon it's like it's racially stratified or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what is the breakdown of that? It's the goofy pluto conundrum.
Speaker 1:It is yeah, well, literally is actually it drives me crazy and that's not even getting into. Like, if you do easter bunny, well one, it's another anthropomorphic fictionalized creature inside your universe, but it's also referencing Christianity. Yeah, jesus.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean to be fair. Easter was a pagan holiday long before it was that, so it is kind of make a case.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think we're going to have to take some, some leaps to get out of the Christian influence in this culture they've created.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, but you're going to have to take some leaps talking about anthropomorphic animals to walk up and talk too. So I mean, you know, so like in that scenario, especially the Easter Bunny would be more like actual Jesus to them.
Speaker 1:ironically, Right, Because it's another animal Easter Bunny crucified for our sins.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that poor bunny nailed to a cross.
Speaker 1:Would you nail each of his ears as well, to a tiny little cross?
Speaker 2:All four of them. It's just got a tiny protrudence at the top with another little bar. A little bar, or maybe a really wide one, because they have big ears.
Speaker 1:Are you doing like the feet?
Speaker 2:You're just like oh, we ran out of of nails, so we're just using one for both ears. Yeah, yes, that's exactly, that's it.
Speaker 1:That's it exactly.
Speaker 2:Yep, uh, our long, a long treatise on how we would crucify the easter bunny, the easter bunny specifically, but you don't nail these feet because I mean they're very large, but you know, I just imagine dangling like it's a stuffed animal. Yeah, it was already dark, so this is an unpleasant image in my mind. It didn't really go dark, it was already there, we just kind of stumbled across it.
Speaker 1:Let's punch a spear into the side of that particular image and move along punch's pilot is like a ferret or something like. Let's not get in anymore. One of the weasels from Roger Rabbit, that's what it is, maybe the hyenas from Lion King.
Speaker 2:Hamlet, I mean Lion King, yeah.
Speaker 1:Don't you mean Kimba the white lion?
Speaker 1:That's exactly what I mean. But this was not based on a Japanese cartoon from decades before Now. This was a really interesting kind of adult take on a cartoon tale that is a reference to the Rudyard Kipling Jungle Book and Second Jungle Book stories from many, many years before. It's odd because when they made the Jungle Book they kind of took the source material and then did their own thing, disney-fied it yes, completely Disney-fied it to where it's not even recognizable. The characters, especially the characters that are transported into the Tailspin story, they bear no resemblance to the original. The Disney version of Baloo is essentially created from scratch. There is a bear of that name, but he's grave and sober, kind of a schoolmaster figure In that story.
Speaker 1:Bagheera is actually the reckless and fun-loving one.
Speaker 2:Baloo had to get sober so he could give the gusty of his kids back.
Speaker 1:Baloo has to watch the orphan kids on Christmas time and they run madcap adventures where they kind of learn about each other and realize that— but they're Kipling.
Speaker 2:Kipling got into a lot of the legal procedural stuff in the divorce. It's kind of a dry read. But when they made Junko book.
Speaker 1:They made their own version of the story and it's that version that is kind of transported by these creators into their own version. So Jim Magon which I'm assuming that's how you say his name, because his name is a fucking fantasy character name it is J-Y-M-N.
Speaker 2:Oh, I was going to mention that. Yeah, the weirdest way to spell Jim possible. Yeah, what are you doing? That's such a millennial name. That's like a. It's supposed to be Jimen, is that what? Um, jimen Hanzo, that's his name.
Speaker 1:Wow, awesome. I love Jaiman Hanzo.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but Jim.
Speaker 1:Magon.
Speaker 2:Magon, destroyer of worlds.
Speaker 1:Is he kind of the main man responsible for this show Like Lobo? Is Lobo the main man responsible for the show?
Speaker 2:Well, that's his nickname the main man.
Speaker 1:Oh is it? Yeah, that's a shitty thing. A Bastiche might say.
Speaker 2:So you know that one, but you don't. But then how can you say I keep pronouncing Bastiche as if he's classy and sophisticated?
Speaker 1:I imagine Lobo more as like a what's the rapey Looney Tunes skunk.
Speaker 2:Pepe Le Pew, Pepe Le Pew. I don't see that strangely, I don't. I see more of a Wolverine analog but I like my version better. He seems pretentious and smokes hand-rolled cigarettes.
Speaker 1:I like that. It's all a facade. Actually, when he closes the door he takes off his big wig and he has slick back French hair and he puts on a nice smoking jacket.
Speaker 2:Do the French have slick back hair? Is that a stereotype?
Speaker 1:No, but if he is a 1930s Frenchman of high esteem and wealth, then yeah, that's how I'm going to cast him.
Speaker 2:Then he was in the Vichy government.
Speaker 1:He was. He was settling in Malaysia. He had a plantation.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean Took off his wig and there was a beret underneath. He's wearing that black and white striped long sleeve shirt with suspenders.
Speaker 1:I'm a high ranking French Foreign Legion official.
Speaker 2:He's smoking a baguette Smoking a baguette.
Speaker 1:That'll fuck you up, man Dude. So Jim, again, he's kind of the main creator of Tailspin. He had been involved in both creation of DuckTales and the Gumi Bars Gumi Bars. And so Disney wanted to start the Disney Afternoon block of programming. There was a name for this, I think it was called Disney Afternoon block of programming. There was a name for this, I think it was called Disney Afternoon.
Speaker 2:I read this somewhere there was a name for this that they were trying to push, but I don't think it stuck. I can't remember. I'll think of it later.
Speaker 1:All I can see is Disney Afternoon when I look for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it doesn't matter Continue.
Speaker 1:So you had like the Gummy Bears and Duck Tales and Chippendale Rescue Rangers and Darkwing Duck as part of that, but getting away from the duck and, I guess, chipmunk based adventures.
Speaker 2:Well, there weren't a lot of those, there was just the one really.
Speaker 1:Well, you know it fits. It's a genre of its own. They were looking for other pitches for that and Magon had an original idea for a sitcom called the B Players. So this is about one-time Disney animation stars and would-be stars trying to win a comeback or first-time roles in a tune version of Hollywood. Baloo was conceived of as one of the leading characters of the show. Horace and Clarabelle would also have been regulars. But when he pitched it there wasn't much interest from Disney. They didn't like that idea. They didn't see it had much of a future. It would have been kind of like a Roger Rabbit-y kind of thing.
Speaker 2:I think that's got some action that might have played. I don't know.
Speaker 1:I mean, if anything, it's kind of what the Rescue Ranger no, not the Rescue Ranger, the Chip and Dale movie from a couple of years ago did. Oh okay, when they're kind of like oh, these are old stars of animation. One went through like surgery to become CGI now.
Speaker 2:It was actually pretty good. I regret not having seen it. I've heard it's sort of like on par with like Detective Pikachu and stuff, where it's surprisingly good. Yeah, it is. It's like, oh wow.
Speaker 1:I didn't really give this much of a chance, but it's funny, it's fairly well written, it's interesting.
Speaker 2:I should go back and watch that yeah.
Speaker 1:You don't need to carve out a slice of your life to see it, but it's a decent time.
Speaker 2:Well, good thing I don't have one.
Speaker 1:No life to carve out. So when they ixnayed that Magan idea, he dusted off a previous idea that he had been working on when he was working on DuckTales, because there'd been some idea to make a Launchpad McQuack show where he'd be the operator of an air freight service and the main character series.
Speaker 2:They were obsessed with Launchpad. He was the only real crossover between DuckTales and Darkwing. Duck, yeah, I never really got it what is their thing. Did they think he was like Han Solo or something? I mean, what was the? I mean, he's kind of supposed to be a little bit, but. But I mean, han is obviously based off an old archetype too, but like that's, why were they so obsessed with Launchpad? I don't get it.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I guess they thought he had wings. The character could fly.
Speaker 2:That's why he showed up later in a sitcom around the same era. Wings Wasn't Tony Shalhoub in that he was. He played a sort of a racially insensitive stereotype of a taxi driver. Fantastic, oh yeah. And that show actually had some decent actors in it and then a couple that never did anything ever again. But you know.
Speaker 1:Maybe later in this podcast we're going to wing it ourselves.
Speaker 2:So with Paul.
Speaker 1:McCartney. No, but we will do the Paul McCartney cyborg that's been around since the early 80s, so he died in the 70s, remember? Yeah, wasn't replaced with a like a cyborg version.
Speaker 2:It was a clone of Joe Biden, Weirdly one of the Biden clones, mm.
Speaker 1:Hmm, oh, joe Biden. Weirdly, one of the Biden clones, joseph.
Speaker 2:Robonet, robonet. Yeah, see, there you go. They're onto something now.
Speaker 1:I was trying Robonet Biden. It still sucked. But at least it was an idea of a joke.
Speaker 2:No, no, there's something there. There's a twinkle in your eye. I can see it.
Speaker 1:But when they'd come up with that idea it didn't quite go anywhere. So magnum kind of took the concept and combined it with his b players pitch and that was the genesis for tailspin now I have a question.
Speaker 2:So in the b players thing, was the idea that it was like the second leads in these different disney properties? I think so Because that's an interesting idea actually, If it was like Baloo and then like I don't know, the Candelabra from.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the show was to be set in a Roger Rabbit-esque world where cartoons and humans coexist, focusing on Baloo and his comedic partner, ricky Ratt, who the F is that yeah, fucking no, as the two attempted to make their way to cartoon stardom and encourage their cast of side character partners.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like extras in a certain way. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. Actually, there's a lot of directions you could go with that. I kind of think that would be really cool.
Speaker 1:The villain was to be an assistant director who was also a toon jealous of his incompetent director, jay Audubon Woodlor. Who the F is that?
Speaker 2:I feel like this is coming from somebody's real place, you know.
Speaker 1:What the hell J Audubon Woodlor, father of the mischievous Humphrey the Bear? Who the hell's Humphrey the Bear?
Speaker 2:I don't know what the hell any of this is.
Speaker 1:Humphrey. The Bear is from the 1950s.
Speaker 2:There's a bear in the goofy cartoon what the wow.
Speaker 1:Also, it's a deep cut it's all seems to be deep cut stuff, but it would be the main character ricky bratt, peter pointer, poacher spaniel, okay see, I'm already way more into this than what we got and what we we used to watch all the time. Fawn Deer, an airheaded toon deer who starred in toilet paper ads.
Speaker 2:The more you dig into that, that sounds even cooler.
Speaker 1:Timothy Tortoise, Roderick's slow-witted and lethargic flunky Waldo Z Platypus, a toon platypus who specialized in physical comedy, kind of like Gonzo, what these all have to be real deep cut characters, right. Buck Steed, a pompous and dumb horse toon who believes he didn't need a writer to be famous.
Speaker 2:What a tragic character.
Speaker 1:Yeah, again an interesting idea, very.
Speaker 2:I could see why they would have no idea what the hell he was talking about.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, no, I think it was maybe a little too high concept and probably worked to an older audience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know what? That's the kind of show they would make today, 100% A show like that would totally play today and would have no shot in hell back then.
Speaker 1:No, I don't think it would. Although it was coming off Roger Rabbit and like a cool world and an evil tunes, you were kind of like doing that blending of live action, sure Tune stuff for an adult audience.
Speaker 2:But that's just more like the format and setting. The concept, though, is something you would totally see today, yeah, and I think it could totally work Sounds awesome actually.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know, maybe Well, we'll get to it later, but they are remaking Tailspin. Yes, I've heard tails.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh God, I've heard duck tails of this occurrence.
Speaker 1:That joke was a feather in your cap, I think. Yeah, they did remake DuckTales. I didn't see any of that?
Speaker 2:I didn't either. I heard good things, though, david Tennant. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, maybe I'll watch it someday, but I'm not going to rush out to see it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, despite us covering Tailspin, I wouldn't say either of us. We're definitely not Disney adults, we're not magical kingdom. Heads out here, no.
Speaker 2:Though not to denigrate the demographic. I know a lot of people that I respect their opinions of pop culture, that are obsessed with disney. To go to disney world every year, you know like, okay, great, not for me necessarily, but I, I get it okay, yeah, I'm glad you enjoy.
Speaker 1:It seems like an expensive hobby. Yeah, no, but uh, you know to each their own. But I've just never been that into disney. I kind of stopped watching most of disney cartoons after I don't know my teens yeah, well, I, I was more of a warner brothers guy, anyway I you know the great looney tunes versus uh, disney debate, kind of like your marvel versus dc yeah, it kind of is the same.
Speaker 2:yeah, coke versus pepsi, the whole like weird dichotomies. We used to have the duo world we used to live in. You know, bugs Bunny was more like Groucho Marx and it was witty and it was funny and Mickey was kind of an idiot and Goofy was slapstick. Like I would much rather watch something funny and witty than you know then Steamboat Willie or whatever the fuck you know, just don't give a shit.
Speaker 1:Oh you sorry my lady, I have to get back home.
Speaker 2:Steamboat Willie is coming on for the 574th time and I've got to be there, which is now literally in the public domain.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I saw there's the guy who's in Terrorfire he's in the. Steamboat Willie horror movie they're making.
Speaker 2:Oh, so it's like the Winnie the Pooh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is what they're doing with all of these Screenboat is what they're calling it.
Speaker 2:Whatever I mean, I get the novelty. I don't dislike the idea of making that kind of movie, but if they're just going to crank these out without a lot of actual conceptual effort, then whatever.
Speaker 1:No, I mean, it's the same way Get Cocaine Bear and then Craccoon and Methigator.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, there's a, there's a shark, one too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that was just like Cocaine Shark. I think it is just Cocaine Shark actually. So boring yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cocaine Bear wasn't even all that good. No, at least Cocaine Bear wasn't.
Speaker 1:It was a true story.
Speaker 2:Wasn't that Elizabeth Banks, didn't she do that one? I want to say yes, I think she's done a bunch of okay-ish movies. That's like her entire. I'm glad she's directing and I don't think the direction is necessarily the problem with any of the films, because she did that reboot of Charlie's Angels and she did. She was at least in that Power Rangers reboot. You know, it's just. Those aren't great movies.
Speaker 1:Fact, when Jim Magan was asked about attracting a more adult audience, he mentioned that we've always had it in the back of our minds that we want to do something a little grittier than, say, ducktales or Rescue Rangers. And when Tailspin came along we said oh boy, this is great Tony the Tiger jumped into frame. It definitely has a sophistication that a lot of other TV animation lacks. He also went on to say well, at the time and locale of the show, both suggest those old movie serials of the 30s it was a very exciting time to be a kid when things were still exotic and mysterious.
Speaker 1:So we want to do a Terry and the Pirates kind of show. Also, what appealed to us about the era was the scale of things. Today technology has miniaturized everything, which isn't visually exciting, but in that era anything powerful was really big, which is great for a cartoon show. We've also got atmosphere of that time with the nightclubs, Art Deco and the old cars. It just gives the show an exciting feel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there is still that lens of Western racism about all of the whole, like everything was exotic and discovering new things which were just things that were already there, that white people don't know about.
Speaker 1:When they say discovering, it means white people found out about them. That's exactly what they mean. Yes, Pioneers, Settlers. I should probably get into a little bit of what the show was before we get too into some of its source material. Source material Tailspin is. It's kind of set in this 1930s-ish era where there seems to have been some type of great war but yet it's pre-television. It's really undefined, but it's kind of this 1930s, 1940s adventure serial vibe.
Speaker 2:It's definitely a pre-World War II, post-World War I era.
Speaker 1:Where Baloo he's kind of the ace cargo pilot making runs to different islands in kind of a tropical setting. He's a very careless businessman. He gets his business and his plane foreclosed upon. He loses it to the bank. And then Rebecca Cunningham.
Speaker 2:We have to address this fact. You've got Baloo, you've got Shere Khan, you've got Kit Cloudkicker, you've got Don Carnage, you've got Mad Dog and then Rebecca Cunningham or Becky for short yeah, I one of these things is not like the other it's very odd.
Speaker 1:Rebecca, and Molly Cunningham too, don't forget, yes, oh, her small child, because she's a single mother who has invested her life's fortune because she wanted to have her own business and she thinks that she can turn Baloo's failing cargo pilot biz into a cash cow. There's also a wildcat, which is their mechanic, who's a tiger, I think.
Speaker 2:No, no, he's a lion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think he's a lion. There's also Kit Cloudkicker, which is kind of, I'll be honest, he kind of felt like the Wesley Crusher of the show.
Speaker 2:Oh, he's the Richie. Yes, this pseudo, pseudo.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't say main character, but there's long-term main character vibes from this kid I think he's supposed to be the one that kids relate to.
Speaker 1:This is obviously sort of geared toward adults a lot of the drama comes from real world adult situations. But lou couldn't manage his finances and he lost his plane and he just wants to do his job and do it to the best of his ability and and this this woman has has bought it and now has turned him into an employee. Yeah, it's uh, rebecca from cheers, which we'll talk about. Yeah, we'll definitely get into that here in a minute.
Speaker 2:Just from picking, characters from the jungle book alone. Like back then, you really would only have known that when you saw it as a kid. I mean, they had it on vhs but it wasn't like it was like on tv all the time or anything. It was very obviously, I think, supposed to tap into the nostalgia of people of a certain age that watched it when they were young, and so I think they put kit in there to like give you the little kid tie in.
Speaker 1:So the kids would relate to it Because, unlike a DuckTales where the trio are kind of like your front and center, this is kind of a story about grownups. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Doing adult things with adult concerns. Yeah, real X-rated, stuff.
Speaker 1:Man Baloo had a hell of a hog, and that thing was not anthropomorphized at all. She got Balooed, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Oh, I know exactly what you mean. More than once they reference a Baloo job.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't know how you paint that up for kids but In a lot of ways it harkened back to the Karl Barks stories, you know the Scrooge McDuck kind of thing, A little more adult-tinged, less kiddy. It was still very relatable to kids adventure tales, just with adult versions and concepts at the underpinning.
Speaker 2:And adult dynamics. Ducktales that's a little more simple. Huey, louie, dewey have a rich uncle. They go on wacky adventures. This one it's about failure and loss and economic turns and yeah, blue wants financial freedom. And then interpersonal dynamics that are way more complicated than Duck Tales.
Speaker 1:Yeah, both main characters want to be good father and or mother figures to the small ones in their life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, another non-traditional family which is fascinating, especially for Disney at that time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's definitely interesting and not of the time.
Speaker 2:As we go along. I think we can make some argument about some of the other things in this weird era for Disney, like Goof Troop for instance, but I'm sure we'll stumble across that as we go, we might.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you want to talk about the dynamics of the blue becky relationship, you know how it is distinctly based on cheers as inspiration and a little bit of moonlighting yeah, a little moonlighting.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of will, they won't they, which is really bizarre for a kid's disney show, especially like a like an after-school show in 1990. It definitely has a post diane cheers archetype because that show is definitely about two different. Cheers is two different shows. But the Rebecca era Cheers thing I mean it's right there, they don't even cover it up. Her name is Rebecca Cunningham for Christ's sake.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I mean they were distinctly going for that vibe. Apparently, in the original version she's more of more corporate, you know like she came with like a suit and she came from money. They decided to tone that down, make her a little more working class, which is actually, I think, more complex and more nuanced.
Speaker 2:as much as it sounds like they're dumbing it down, it actually, I think, adds another level of class, commentary and things, because otherwise it's like she could have basically been the villain from Major League.
Speaker 1:But making her a more relatable character with their own goals. You had Shere Khan for that kind of corporate elite class dynamic. For her she's just a struggling businessman who's trying to deal with this lazy a-hole that she's kind of stuck with.
Speaker 2:On top of being a single mom. Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean there's, yeah, I think, toning the corporate thing down on paper. You would think, oh, they made it more capitalist friendly. But no, it actually adds another big layer of the struggle of making it in the world with all of these challenges.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're making kind of a rookie entrepreneur who's put all of the money she has into this business. You know kind of a bad idea really, but she's just trying to like get through and make it day to day and try to make this thing work Same way. Baloo is the same way, like we all are, as opposed to making her from money who inherited the business and has put Baloo on the payroll to do his duty. There was this burgeoning relationship that they got into a little bit as much as a Disney show was going to. Right, they're not taking any long breaks in the back or anything.
Speaker 2:There's no disclosure moment. That happens, yeah.
Speaker 1:So they have this business. It was originally Baloo's Air Service Great name, baloo Nailed it but then she turned it to Hire for Hire it's actually pretty good, it's a good name. I had completely forgotten about that before. I went and rewatched some of these and I was like, oh no, that's Pretty damn clever, actually Pretty smart. One of the only other people from the Jungle Book is the Louis character.
Speaker 1:The orangutan Is that right, he is an orangutan. He is the proprietor of an island restaurant, bar, airplane refueling station, kind of like Rick's in Casablanca. Anybody can gather there. It's neutral territory. Maybe he did some stuff back in the day, but he's just out slinging drinks and being the place to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to make the Casablanca analogy earlier with the setting. I know Casablanca happens during World War II, but this is very much in that kind of world, yeah Louis, the Rix or Guinan kind of vibe. That's really, really interesting. I think this actually has a lot of parallels with Casablanca too. Actually.
Speaker 1:It does, but perhaps it has the most parallels with an underseen 1980s TV show that the writers and creators spoke about being an influence, called Tales of the Golden Monkey. I had never heard of this before we looked into this. I had never heard of this either. It was a primetime Wednesday night ABC show that ran from September 22nd 1982 until January 1st 1983.
Speaker 2:Okay, so three months Okay.
Speaker 1:It had 22 episodes, that's a full season.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they got into it. I'm just shocked. I'd that's a full season. Yeah, they got into it. I'm just shocked, I'd never even heard about this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've seen a lot of TV, completely fallen into obscurity. But it is a adventure show releasing the year after Raiders of the Lost Ark, so getting a little bit of those vibes Early aviation, indigenous locals, a lot of action and came from the mind of Don Bellisario. When this failed he would go on to use some of the actors and the Adventures of an Ace Pilot concept into his 1984 to 86 tech chopper adventure Airwolf Fuck, yeah, airwolf. And then did some stuff with Magnum, pi and Jag later on. But it tells the story of 1938 in the South Pacific.
Speaker 1:An ex-fighter pilot, jake Cutter. Now he operates an air cargo service delivering in the South Seas the island of Bora Gora. Okay, he flies the Grumman Goose which is called Cutter's Goose. They distinctly took those names for the sea duck and tailspin. He has a best friend named Corky who's the pilot, kind of a drunk and a goof, a lot like Wildcat. He has a one-eyed Jack Russell Terrier. In the opening scene of the show he bets his dog's glass eye that has like gems in it and whatnot in this poker game against Nazis that he loses and so at least in the pilot he's trying to get enough money to buy the eye back for his dog, and the dog also will bark. He can communicate, so he barks. Think one bark for no, two barks for yes. But then maybe it's the opposite and it's two barks for no, one bark for yes. Which is how they have this. Should I bet your eye or shouldn't I bet your eye? At the beginning of the show they did a bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's actually one of the more enjoyable parts. It's good dog acting, I will say that. So then you have this woman that comes into the business Nice. So then you have this woman that comes into the business. She turns out to be a US spy, but she's a singer, dancer, possible movie star, vibe. You also have Bonchance Louis, played by Roddy McDowell Wow, good time, louis, that's awesome. The owner of the Monkey Bar and the French magistrate of Beauregord. Again, louis runs this bar where everybody congregates after the war Gotcha. Then there's the main villain, japanese princess, who's not played by a Japanese actress.
Speaker 2:Oof.
Speaker 1:Even in the mid-80s Wow, yeah, well, early 80s. You also have this German reverend who is preaching the gospel to the island, but his gospel is that he will do special blessings with the young women alone.
Speaker 2:Oh, they were early on in this one, huh yeah, his private prayers.
Speaker 1:In the first episode there's this I don't know, maybe she's 18, 17, 18, asian actress who's just like blessing, blessing, can I have blessing? And he's like not now, not now, we'll deal with it later. Oh, God Good thing it's to come to those who wait.
Speaker 2:The video for like a prayer is playing in the background.
Speaker 1:But the main bad guy is the money man from Airwolf, Do you remember? Oh?
Speaker 2:yeah, with the eyepatch, yes, with the eyepatch. Okay, he always wore a white suit, fucking ruled.
Speaker 1:No, no, I'm thinking of the wrong guy.
Speaker 2:Oh are you thinking about the old British guy? Yes, no, that was Knight Rider. Was that Knight Rider?
Speaker 1:Oh shit, William Forsythe's in a couple episodes. Oh interesting, you totally recognize him. He plays this German officer who's like one of the main bad guys. All right, Branson Richcombe is in some episodes. Wow, that's something. But yeah. So Tales of the Golden Wink was definitely a resource for the ideas of the show. Both Magnet and Mark Zasloff, who's the other main creator of Talespin, both referenced it for some of the characters, Balloon's plane and the vibe of the show, because it's very much similar. The pilot has to go on adventures and discover new lands. It's a lot of smuggling.
Speaker 2:I mean it's the same kind of yeah, same trope that they use for Han Solo yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, very similar. And from what I've seen of Tales of the Golden Monkey it was like an hour and a half pilot. I got mostly through it. It's weird Opening scene is a couple of German explorers shoot weird monkey creatures and then get killed by them. That's how the show opens. It got my attention. Yeah, it felt very like Congo. Oh, okay, but with much less money. Well, much less wasted money.
Speaker 2:I don't hate Congo, oh okay, but with much less money. Well, much less wasted money. I don't hate Congo.
Speaker 1:You don't hate Congo. I don't hate Congo. No, it's terrible, it's really bad. We watch much worse things and there's some positives there.
Speaker 2:Of course, yeah, but I mean you see Jurassic Park and then you see Congo and you're like, well, you know I can have my steak and I can have a burger.
Speaker 1:They're not incompatible.
Speaker 2:Which is worse?
Speaker 1:I mean I eat at the same time.
Speaker 2:but I double fist them.
Speaker 1:I can't get enough, Put more meat in my mouth. I got a steak shake. Get a steak burger. Baby, You've combined the two things that could not be combined. You didn't stop to ask yourself should we do a thing? You just slapped it on the lunchbox.
Speaker 2:Steak finds a way.
Speaker 1:And you sold it. Put it in a plastic lunchbox.
Speaker 2:Oh, we didn't talk about the villains. No, not at all. We're really a lot of the same main setup and premise. Yet We've got that part but we don't have the other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so obviously there are things that are going to get in Baloo and Kit and Becky's way, as it were. You have Shere Khan, one of the three characters from the actual Jungle Book story, but in this he's a corporate tycoon. He's Lex Luthor, yeah, always in a suit, looking very suave. He's the big dick swinging money, trying tocut them, put them out of business. He has his own crew of panther pilots.
Speaker 2:He's got minions he's got. It's a good, uh good. Look, he's dark and mysterious and always has plans within plans, but I mean the representation of ruthless corporate evil, a very 80s trope, a very relevant one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if anything, he'd be kind of like I don't know, I mean like whatever the wealthy people that were going against Scrooge McDuck all the time, I don't even remember. Well, I didn't read that much.
Speaker 2:Scrooge. Did he ever read Scrooge? I mean, did he have a wealthy foidel? He did, I don't know. It seems like he did. I just can't remember Flintheart Glomgold.
Speaker 1:Okay, another wealthy person who was always.
Speaker 2:I mean, we can get into DuckTales at a different time, because that's also something really interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, he's another ambitious, ruthless, manipulative businessman. He's a South African-American Peking duck.
Speaker 2:Oh boy does that. Wow that's a rabbit hole. Holy shit, there was a rabbit hole.
Speaker 1:Yeah, holy shit. There was also John D Rockerduck, of course, of course they were going to go to Rockefeller stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those are all stand-ins for, like, carnegie and Rockefeller.
Speaker 1:The other main bad guy in the show I would say that consistently popped up was Don Carnage. Don Carnage, I'd say he's probably one of the funnier elements of the show, sure, but he's kind of the rakish leader of a pirate society.
Speaker 2:They're sky pirates, yes, which is a really weird thing we need to talk about, because being a sky pirate doesn't seem lucrative or effective. Okay, so you have pirates on ships and you have boats, and the boats are steady, they're in the water, you can go from A to B or whatever. A plane being attacked by other planes is a really weird forgive the pun, nebulous idea. Where you're like, it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1:If you shoot a flying contraption that is thousands of pounds and it loses control and crashes into something, thus giving you the opportunity to board it and take its stuff, you're going to find it a big heap of wreckage instead of a viable source to be mined from and sold to someone.
Speaker 2:Well, it's not like in Mad Max, where you're on the road and you're chasing somebody and it's you know you catch up with them and they're still there on the ground. Or you're in the water and you're on a boat and you get to boat and the boat can sink, but most of the time boats are just going to float.
Speaker 1:This one you're hanging in the air, flying around Like the pirate thing doesn't really make a lot of sense, I think in the pilot, the first time you see them attack another plane it's one of Shere Khan's planes they put grappling hooks on each wing yes, they do and then they kind of force it down, land on the water then, I guess, steal the plane and or all of its goods.
Speaker 2:That was the only time I think they kind of addressed that weird disconnect there. Yeah, and they do. You're right. They have a whole scene where they show how they pirate planes. It's just as a general concept. It doesn't really seem to work very well.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean? No, I think it's one of those rule of cool because it sounds oh Sky Pirate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sky Pirate, that's awesome. Yeah, all right, let's do it.
Speaker 1:It's like an ice pirate, yeah, like an ice pirate Wow.
Speaker 2:We have to talk about ice pirates, by the way.
Speaker 1:We do need to talk about ice. There's, the voices of Tailspin were a mix of what you'd call like face actors and veteran voice actors. They wanted Phil Harris who did the original voice of Blue in the Jungle Book cartoon, but at the time that they were making Tailspin he was 85. He had trouble recreating the voice Plus. It was like a four, four hour round trip from Palm Springs. Every time it didn't end up working out. So I believe that he was the voice for, like I think, the pilot and maybe a couple episodes, but then that Harris had done. He was your main actor. For that you had Sally Struthers. She was doing Rebecca Cunningham. It was hot, let me tell you.
Speaker 2:Said no one ever about Sally Struthers. Sally Struthers says Rebecca Cunningham comes in and says do you want to make more money? Sure, we all do. Nobody gets that reference. Do you not remember those commercials? Uh, no. So Sally Struthers used to do these commercials for, like, I think it was like a DeVry type trade school where she would just come on and be like do you want to make more money?
Speaker 2:Sure, we all do and then the whole, this whole thing, her delivery and everything was so awful and answering her own question that it always stuck out to me that's kind of all she did until this.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, coming off doing the voice of Teenage Pebbles in the Hanna-Barbera.
Speaker 2:Pebbles and Bam Bam show. Oh, that's right. Yeah, they had that. I forgot that show existed.
Speaker 1:You had her in All in the Family. I think she was pretty big in that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was her big, thing, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, before her roles in the Gilmore Girls.
Speaker 2:Huh, huh. Oh yeah, she is in the Gilmore Girls. I was thinking in that like, wow, what had she been doing between those things After those commercials in the 90s? I don't remember Sally Struthers at all until Gilmore Girls. She kind of disappeared.
Speaker 1:Well, she was that one episode of Fish Police.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, fish Police. Yes, the funny thing is, I know exactly what you're talking about. The Simpsons even make a joke about that show in one of the Treehouse of Horror episodes. She was the mom in Dinosaurs.
Speaker 1:Really she was, yeah.
Speaker 2:The mom she was, yeah, she was Charlene Sinclair.
Speaker 1:I did not know that.
Speaker 2:It doesn't sound like her Acting. She's so well known for her varied accents and vocal work. Wait, which one was? No, I don't think she was the mom?
Speaker 1:No, that was actually Jessica Walter, I think From Arrested Development.
Speaker 2:No that was actually Jessica Walter, I think, from.
Speaker 1:Arrested Development oh, that would make sense. Fran Sinclair, but I don't know who. Charlene Sinclair she says she was in 64 episodes, which is she might be the daughter, oh okay, which I guess would make sense if she was playing Pebbles before. Yeah, you know, Teenage Pebbles might as well have her.
Speaker 2:Teenage Dinosaur is one to one. It's a logical next step.
Speaker 1:You jump right in. It's kind of two sides of the same coin really, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's the next step in evolution.
Speaker 1:And then Kit was voiced by a couple child actors who had names, but we will move past those.
Speaker 2:Guaranteed they had names. I guarantee it. You had Shere Khan played head names.
Speaker 2:I guarantee it, you had sheer con played by tony jay, a veteran character actor, and this is one of the few things in this that I know way too much about. But this is crossover with a phenomenon that sadly is still going. Conservative christian organization focus on the family, run by james dobson a complete asshole produced kids programming starting in the I think, the late 80s and still going to this day, a radio drama that all the kids are into. You would be shocked at how many kids know about this and have heard it growing up, especially evangelical kids. It's called Adventures in Odyssey. It's called Adventures in Odyssey and Tony Jay was a reoccurring voice actor on that where he played, obviously one of the villains because of his voice, because he's got a great villain voice.
Speaker 2:But there were a lot of these actors who were relatively mainstream that did do a lot of crossover with this just because it was steady voice actor work. The guy that was the constable in Young Frankenstein he's in a ton of that show. The actor who plays the voice of Milhouse she's in a ton of that show. It's really awful and 100% indoctrinating and brainwashing kids into evangelicalism and has really weird messages about the deep state, about pro deep state. It's really, really a bizarre show, but there's a lot of crossover with these rotating character actors in that too, and it's all around the same era. But I mean, hey, it was a paycheck, so you can't really fault them. Of course, here in this we've got mean. You'll see guys like Frank Welker come up in Tailspin and Lorenzo Music, one of the great voice actors of all time. Lorenzo Music played Sergeant Dunder in seven episodes. Frank Welker played basically whenever they needed somebody to fill in for 17 episodes he was in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he would do a lot of side stuff there. A lot of side stuff there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean, he's a guy that's always available. He's like Mark Hamill now, or Tom Kenny. You know he's there, he'll do it and he'll crush it every time.
Speaker 1:The rest of the music played Tummy Gummy on the gummy hairs Completely coincidental name oh. Tummy Gummy.
Speaker 2:He's got a gummy tummy.
Speaker 1:You know. And then you had Jim Cummings who was kind of like the MVP of the show he did Louis Don Carnage and a host of other guest characters.
Speaker 2:Which is weird because he's only in 42 episodes. The show ran 66? Yes, 66.
Speaker 1:Well, it says he's in 48, but that's probably different characters. So maybe Louis is in 48, but that's probably different characters. So maybe Louie's in an episode when Don Carnage isn't kind of thing.
Speaker 2:So here's one of the problems with IMDb is that it is often, oh, I'm sorry, I'm thinking of RJ Williams, I'm sorry, oh, no, the guy who played Kit.
Speaker 1:One of the guys who played Kit?
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the guys. That's why he's only in 42.
Speaker 1:Yes, Jim Cummings is in 48. Yes, he's Don Carnage.
Speaker 2:yes, Jim was Cumming in Tailspin. He's Cumming in Cumming If you've ever watched Pumping Iron.
Speaker 1:Playing a Sky Pirate. It's like Jim Cummings.
Speaker 2:It's just like Jim Cummings, over and over again it's the best feeling in the world.
Speaker 1:Tailspin had a higher standing generally of writing in its episodes compared to other things like DuckTales. As Jim Magan was kind of like the supervising producer effectively what we'd call a showrunner today had an effect of keeping the series' sense of humor which is like a little sharper, much more rapid fire than DuckTales or Rescue Rangers. But it also avoided the Looney Tunes-inspired like anything for a laugh style of humor that you'd sometimes get in like a Darkwing Duck or some later DuckTales episodes. Magan Zasloff both wrote a bunch of episodes but you also had Don Rosa wrote a couple episodes, one of the guys behind the, the old carl barks uncle scrooge comics.
Speaker 2:he actually wrote some of the tailspin episodes I used to have some of those old comics. Uh, they were. I think they were an actual disney imprint. It wasn't gold key, I don't think. I think it was an actual disney comics imprint. Yeah, I mean they had multiple. This would have been in like the 50s and 60s.
Speaker 1:Probably one of the more recognizable things, especially from the memory box that we keep Tailspin in, would be its theme song. Oh yeah, so Michael and Patty Silvershire did the theme song kind of this Calypso influence adventure song which I remember liking as a kid. But when I heard it rewatching these after the first time I was like no, I do not need to hear this ever again no sir, I do not like it.
Speaker 2:I like the breakdown part, you know, and in in the opening credits it's. It's this really weird shot of baloo from an episode clip from baloo from an episode dressed as carmen miranda, an episode dressed as Carmen Miranda with maracas, or whatever. I think that part slaps. It's obviously just a tiny part of it, but I was thinking about that from in this era of these cartoons, between DuckTales, darkwing Duck and this, this is the weakest of those songs. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1:DuckTales is by far the song of Disney cartoons.
Speaker 2:I think so. So I think closely followed by Darkwing Duck, though.
Speaker 1:I don't remember Darkwing Duck at all yeah, pull it up pull it up, let's hear it oh this was the.
Speaker 2:It was their urban, more urban.
Speaker 1:Inspired when they get to the Darkwing Duck chorus. I I think that's pretty good. I don't necessarily care for the hip-hop influence stuff in between. We got that sweet saxophone. Tailspin is the weakest of all of those.
Speaker 2:I didn't watch Rescue Rangers. I am aware of it and I've seen episodes. I just didn't. I wasn't a fan of that one, but it had a pretty memorable theme theme too. I wonder, looking back now, if it's better or worse than Tailspin, because Tailspin's I still kind of enjoy.
Speaker 1:I just listened to that as well. Rescue Rangers is better. I think Rescue Rangers would probably be second in my opinion. Really Okay, but still nothing's beating DuckTales.
Speaker 2:Oh no, DuckTales is a jam.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'd say that's kind of like my little breakdown for the idea of the series, people involved in creating it, where the show came from. Again, it lasted 66 episodes. Originally the pilot was a feature-length movie that later on, when it came to syndication, got broken up into four separate episodes, but it did get nominated and won an Emmy for best original animated feature. It was, I think, that year, the only thing nominated, so it won by default.
Speaker 2:Default.
Speaker 1:But it still counts as a win. Quickly after its first run it did go into syndication and then one of the Disney network has had different iterations. Strange enough, it's had lots of different editing throughout its run. There's, like I found, a whole website dedicated to just the different edits of tailspin episodes. Wow, that's fascinating. It was a lot. And again, hey, thanks for checking out the pod. I'm seeing what we're chatting about. Until we get on our own sea duck and fly away collectively, Skip. What should they do?
Speaker 2:Well, I think they should probably listen to us more. Christ's sake, we need it For the sake of the Easter bunny, please Listen to our show.
Speaker 1:You're crucified for your sins.
Speaker 2:Make sure that you guys out there have cleaned up after yourselves to some sort of reasonable degree, that you have paid your tabs, your bartenders, your KJs you've left sizable tips for the hard work that they do. Don't forget to support your local comic shops and retailers. And from Dispatch Ajax we would like to say Godspeed, fair Wizard.
Speaker 1:Please go away.